Audit Criticizes County Vehicle Records

April 18, 1986|By Sally Gelston, Staff Writer

Lack of records on county-owned vehicle use left auditors unable to determine whether ``actual use of vehicles served a public purpose,`` the auditors wrote to Palm Beach County commissioners in an audit received Thursday.

Documentation of odometer readings, dates and purpose of trips are not monitored, wrote the accounting firm of Deloitte, Haskins and Sells in its analysis of the fiscal year ended last September.

The county`s 850 vehicles use 480,000 gallons of unleaded gasoline a year from the county`s eight pumping stations. About 175 of the vehicles are driven home by county employees, said Lewis Jones, assistant director of the motor pool.

County Internal Auditor Jack McGregor said auditors have criticized the county on its state-required mileage records every year since 1978, but that the majority of employees continued to ignore their log sheets.

``That`s next to last in importance,`` McGregor said of the 21 exceptions the auditors listed as needing improvement.

In the wake of the audit, Assistant County Administrator Vince Bonvento has been assigned to enforce the mileage records-keeping practice, McGregor said.

Commission Chairwoman Karen Marcus said the lack of records did not bother her.

``I`ve had to do it. It`s time-consuming and tedious,`` Marcus said. ``I don`t believe anyone is abusing it. Anyone abusing it would be discovered. And the people we have on staff are too professional for that.``

Auditors wrote that they considered the most significant problem to be a lack of federal grants coordination. They recommended that a grants coordinator be hired to reduce the risk of losing federal money.

County officials responded that they want to hire such a coordinator next year.

At Palm Beach International Airport, the county lost ``significant`` interest income by delaying requests for Federal Aviation Administration grant reimbursements, the auditors wrote.

The county responded that the person responsible for filing reimbursement papers fell behind because of extra work generated by the airport expansion. A second person is being hired to help out, officials wrote.

In other areas, the auditors wrote:

That many property owners were not billed for garbage collection they received. This is because the list of people to be billed for garbage collection was based on property appraiser records not designed for this purpose. County officials said they revised the process in accordance with changes suggested by the auditors.

Two bank accounts averaging $266,000 and $204,000 were not earning interest. County officials said they would look into changing that.

Water department clerks are collecting customer fees and making the accounting entries, which is a conflict of duties. The duties should be segregated. County officials concurred.

The Internal Audit Department has done relatively few internal audits since it creation in 1982 because it was serving as financial advisor to the commission. That advisory role has been transferred to another department, so more internal audits should be done. The county agreed.

The auditors wrote that they did not find any ``material weaknesses,`` meaning there were no slack practices that would leave room for undetected loss of funds. But the limited scope of the audit would not necessarily turn up all weaknesses, they wrote.

However, the auditors found ``weaknesses in internal auditing control for which corrective action might be taken,`` they wrote.